


The Bull of Minos

by Daegaer



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Angels, Bronze Age, Demons, Labyrinth - Freeform, M/M, Minoan, Minoan Crete, Minotaur - Freeform, Snakes, bull-leaping, owes a debt to The King Must Die
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-20 01:41:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20219692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daegaer/pseuds/Daegaer
Summary: Aziraphale and Crowley find themselves with the same monster-hunting assignment.





	The Bull of Minos

The seats surrounding the palace Court of the Bulls were packed with nobles and hangers-on, all dressed in their best bright-dyed kilts and flounced, layered skirts, all laughing and gossiping gaily. The day's sacrifices had been carried out at sunrise and the omens had been good, and now bets were beginning to be made. It wasn't that anyone _wanted_ to see a terrible injury or death of course, but there hadn't been one for a while and it really was so exciting to think of what was being risked, down there on the sand.

Aziraphale shifted a little, smoothing his cream-coloured woolen kilt neatly down and admiring first its wide hem, embroidered with bright blue thread, and then his new sandals with the embossed decorations that matched his kilt's embroidery. Thank heavens for the local fashions, he thought. It was so nice not to be covered up for once. Sitting with the sun on one's skin was so pleasant, although perhaps not quite so nice for people who didn't have control over things like sunburn. No wonder those in power were taking advantage of things like parasols, he thought, looking over.

On the wide, shaded platform overlooking the arena the Sacred King sat alone and grim faced, and the Lady of the Labyrinth reclined in comfort, with wine cooled in snow brought down from the mountains, and with attentive servants to fan them continually. All they had to do was look imposing and enjoy themselves. Which wasn't hard, Aziraphale thought snippily, when all that took was lounging around in revealing gold-embroidered costumes with a tame snake or two slithering all over you while you ate snacks. As if only then noticing the crowd, the Lady of the Labyrinth looked away from whatever her ladies were whispering to her, put down her wine and signaled to the stewards who hauled back the heavy doors.

A group of seven young people came out, all whip-thin and bright-eyed, as the crowd cheered loudly. It was at first glance difficult to tell the very young men and women apart: ladies of social stature kept themselves from the sun and rejoiced in displaying softly rounded arms and ample, pale breasts offset by bright open-fronted jackets. All the young people who dropped to their knees on the sand were darkly tanned, and wirily muscled from long, hard exercise. They were not dressed in jewel toned blues and scarlets, but only in sweat-darkened leather loincloths tied tightly about their hips. Their hair didn't hang in carefully tended ringlets but was shorn close to the scalp. Not one of them, Aziraphale thought, could be older than fifteen.

"Hail, Minos King! Hail, Lady of the Labyrinth!" they cried out. "Hail, Earthshaker Poseidon!"

A deep lowing sound came from behind the doors and the stewards began to haul them open again. Aziraphale leant forward as a large brown and white bull dashed out and stopped, confused by his sudden exit into sunlight and noise.

The young people got up and fanned out slowly across the sand.

"Hail, Earthshaker," Aziraphale heard their captain say to the bull. He rather thought he'd have said _Oh, bugger_ in such a situation himself.

The boy clapped his hands and impudently kicked dust at the bull. The creature snorted in outrage, dropping its head and leveling its long horns at him. "Yah!" the boy shouted. "Here!" 

As the moving wall of aggrieved beef bore down on him one of the girls shot across the bull's field of vision, distracting it and pulling its movement after her instead. Aziraphale found his mouth dry at the sight of a massive animal thundering after a slight teenager running for her life. The crowd howled with furious joy as she doubled back and the bull overshot, to be distracted again by another of the boys into another fruitless chase. 

"Dance!" the man beside Aziraphale screamed, laughing as the bull stopped for a moment, clearly trying to decide which of the annoying creatures around it to kill first. "Dance!"

"Dance! Dance! Dance!" the crowd took up the chant. 

Aziraphale found himself yelling along with them. _How embarrassing_, he thought, forcing himself to stop. The smallest of the girls cartwheeled right under the bull's nose and he shot to his feet in exultation, screaming along with everyone else.

"Dance! Dance! Dance!"

The bull dancers nodded to each other as the bull slowed in his pursuit of them. The captain worked his way to facing the bull, his steps light and mocking as if he were dancing at his own wedding, as another of the boys slipped behind the bull's tail and the other two boys moved to the sides while the girls waited to run in. There was a moment of stillness, then the boy bowed to the bull as it too dipped its head and both rushed at each other.

"Oh, I just can't watch," Aziraphale said, staring down wide-eyed.

Just as he was sure he was about to see something _terrible_ the boy took hold of the bull's horns, the bull jerked its head up in disapproval and – Aziraphale put a hand over his mouth in wonder – the boy somersaulted perfectly over its back to be steadied on landing by his teammate. The crowd shrieked and jumped up and down, and threw flowers at the bull and the dancers as the mood took them. Aziraphale watched the bright smiles the young people gave their adoring audience, and the quick sidelong glances they shot each other that said, _Idiots_. Another boy drew the bull's attention and lined himself up for a jump, flying lightly through the air, followed by two of the girls somersaulting over the bull simultaneously from the sides as the third landed briefly on its back to pirouette and backflip off. By the time they had all jumped again the bull was standing defeated, its sides heaving and its head down. 

"Hail, Lord and Lady of Knossos!" the team cried, their voices rough from the dust and the exertion, and they turned to walk from the arena to the jubilant cheers of the crowd.

The stewards rushed out, carefully trapping the bull's horns with looped ropes at the ends of strong wooden poles.

"Come on, dear heart," one of the girls said to the bull, patting his steaming, sweating shoulder. "Time to rest. Good boy." 

Like an exhausted, oversized dog, the bull meekly followed them back into the darkness.

_Well,_ Aziraphale thought, sitting down. _Gosh_. That had really been something. He was glad he didn't stand out too much in his appreciation; the locals all seemed to think it had been a very good show as well, and were gossiping about how astonishing it was to have a team that still had all its members alive after so many months. There was less hubbub coming from the shaded platform where the King and the Lady of the Labyrinth were, but he supposed that rulers were the same worldwide and needed to maintain an air of dignity. He looked over and went stock still, his lips pursed.

It certainly looked like the Lady of the Labyrinth was benevolently looking down at her people, sipping at her cool wine as one of her sacred snakes coiled itself from her neck slowly down her body to curl beside her. For those who knew how to see, however, and squinted their angelic eyes just so against the harsh Cretan sunlight, it looked very much like a skinny demon of Aziraphale's acquaintance was cuddled up on the High Priestess of Knossos' divan, with his arm around her waist. 

Crowley winked. Aziraphale sighed. Ah well, he supposed he would have shown up sooner or later.

* * *

"What were you doing with that woman?"

Aziraphale tossed down a cup of wine and moodily ate a date. It was very good so he ate another one.

"What do you think I was doing with her?" Crowley said, sounding as innocent as, as – as a giant lying snake-demon, Aziraphale decided. "You were staring hard enough with those big round eyes. Her couch is very comfortable, by the way. Nice and squishy. Like her."

Aziraphale said something that wasn't technically a swear word, but only because Adam hadn't quite worked out how to speak properly when he first dropped a tortoise on his foot. Crowley sat back and regarded him in what seemed to be surprise, though it quickly shaded into overtly mock confusion.

"Sorry? Didn't quite catch that? Not quite the tongues of angels. Could I just ask, Aziraphale – might you be, by perhaps the slightest tiniest out of this universe possibility - _jealous_?"

"_I am not_ jealous," Aziraphale finished at a more normal volume.

"You are," Crowley said with a grin. "You're jealous. Of a human." He lounged back against the wall of the labyrinth, the better to show off his legs and how the wide belt wrapped about his black kilt emphasized his slim waist. The sunlight gleamed on his skin in a way that showed he was giving it considerable aid. "And who could blame you?"

"You are the most idiotic demon I have ever met," Aziraphale groused.

"Oh, been socially introduced to many of us, have you?"

"Enough of you," Aziraphale sniffed, deciding it really would be beyond the Pale to say that technically the others he had met hadn't yet officially been classed as "demons" and he hadn't so much _met_ them as _swung a flaming sword in the general direction of the enemy forces_. It seemed a bit tactless for a nice summer's evening.

"Come on, don't be like that. She not a friend, not like you; she thinks I'm one of her pet snakes. I just cuddled with her." Crowley slid a little closer and poured more wine. "This is a great place – so cosmopolitan, so full of the produce of other countries. Have more of this wine, it's imported from Troy. Those dates are from Syria. Well, they were, anyway. Good job I didn't want any."

"Sorry," Aziraphale said, his mouth full. He swallowed. "I was just expecting to have Crete to myself for a while, that's all. I was merely surprised to see you. Nothing more."

"Sorry, I actually got here first; I couldn't face Mycenae for a moment longer. All those boar hunts and singing drunkenly into the night about the beauty of a fellow's horse and how well a fellow's wife pulls his chariot, or however it goes. The second I heard that this place had indoor plumbing I hopped on a ship."

"So you're here for the modern bathrooms?" Aziraphale said doubtfully. He poked at another of the little bowls a lissome, dark-eyed slave boy had brought them. "I think this is raw octopus," he said. He wasn't sure about tentacles, he thought. Great twisting sea monsters belonged back at the start of creation, but at dinner?

"Oh, that's local. Very clever, your octopus is. It's like eating something with rather more conversational prowess than the average Mycenaean nobleman," Crowley said, and popped the choicest morsel in his mouth. "Mmm," he added, giving Aziraphale a thumbs-up.

Aziraphale was so astonished at the sight of Crowley eating anything without persuasion, let alone the biggest, nicest bit of anything, that he forgot his scruples about eating raw intelligent beings and took a mouthful quickly himself, lest he miss out.

"Oh," he said, grabbing the bowl. "That _is_ nice. That could convert me to raw fish, I think."

"Well, there's a new religious movement if ever I heard one," Crowley said. "Don't try it with anything that isn't fresh. The old material bodies don't seem to like that much." He grimaced theatrically. "I'm also here about the Minotaur," he mumbled, looking away.

"I knew it," Aziraphale said. "One of yours is he?"

"It's complicated. By which I mean they said, _Go to Crete, play with the maze and deal with bull-boy._ Or words to that effect. It wasn't very clear; I was scrying in a bowl of wine at the time and mostly concentrating on singing about someone's beautiful horse."

"And that's why you were cuddling up to your squishy priestess, I suppose?"

"She knows her way around the labyrinth. I'm hoping for a guided tour; the whole wandering round with a ball of wool thing doesn't appeal. So why are you here?"

Aziraphale sighed and held out his cup for a refill.

"The Minotaur, my dear. He eats children, apparently. I'm to put an end to it."

Crowley shook his head sadly as he poured. "Eating kids – terrible habit. Never go around to Moloch's at teatime, that's what I say. Maybe we should go exploring together. What's it called when you go wandering round caves?"

"Spelunking," Aziraphale said. "But the labyrinth's a man-made construction."

"Filled with mad axe-wielding women, I think you'll find. _Spelunking_, huh? We should spelunk together. Fight the monster with virtue and well, not-virtue." He grinned at his own cleverness.

"Work . . . together?" Aziraphale said.

Crowley shrugged and blinked as the sun sparkled off his shoulder in a way that showed he'd forgotten he was enhancing the light. "Yes, why not? It's just some local nonsense anyway. Your lot aren't all that likely to have gone around producing children with livestock and mine just don't have the imagination. It's just a blessed myth, Aziraphale, and I say that as a being therefrom."

"That's not really a watertight argument."

"Really? What part?"

"Any of it!"

Crowley shrugged again, this time without the sparkles. He really could be infuriating, Aziraphale thought, the way he just stood there, looking all insouciantly smug, playing with the silver snake-shaped bracelet winding up his forearm, his artfully ringletted hair hanging down over his ears, with too much eyeliner making his lashes look ridiculous, and his feet in an even nicer pair of sandals than Aziraphale himself was wearing. _Blast_, he thought, _I'm staring_. He busied himself making a new type of foodstuff consisting of meat and cheese between two pieces of warm flat bread. He'd call it the _between-bread_, he decided.__

_ _"Well?" Crowley said._ _

_ _"Oh – maybe. But only so I can keep an eye on you."_ _

_ _"I rather thought that was what you were doing already."_ _

_ _Aziraphale concentrated on eating his between-bread and didn't dignify that with an answer._ _

_ _

_ __ _

* * *

"It's very dark down here," Aziraphale said in a reasonable tone.

"Stop bloody whining! Do you even know how many times you've said that? Oh, never mind." Crowley stopped suddenly, causing Aziraphale to run into his back. "You know I can see perfectly well. We don't _need_ a light. In fact, a light will attract attention from wandering priestesses. We went through this already."

Aziraphale had the sudden sensation that he was now facing a ticked-off demon, and took a prudent half step backwards.

"Oh, give over. I'm not going to turn into a heaving mass of ravening octopuses – er, octopodes - um, octopodii? Anyway, your dinner isn't coming back to haunt you. Just _please_, keep quiet."

They had started by creeping through a maze of dim storage rooms, each leading on the next, the palace's wealth neatly laid out in amphorae of wine, grain and oil. Even invisible it had been a chore to dodge the workers scurrying around sweeping the floors, tallying the stores and dispensing rations to the governors' offices for each area. Aziraphale had to be dragged away once he started reading over a scribe's shoulder.

"Fascinating writing system," he whispered.

Crowley shot him a withering look that scorched the plaster behind his head and pulled him along.

By this time they were deep in the secret parts of the labyrinth, where only the priestesses and the Sacred King came. No daylight penetrated and Aziraphale, even though his night vision was considerably better than the average run of mortal created beings', couldn't so much as see his hand in front of his face and was totally lost.

"That's interesting," Crowley said. "I wonder if it's a map."

"What? Where?"

"Oh, for –"

There was the sound of fingers snapping and a low, red-toned light illuminated their immediate area. Aziraphale made an _oh_ of surprise to see that the walls were plastered and painted in elaborate scenes of forests with animals feeding peacefully. _No one ever sees this_, he thought sadly.

"Stop looking at that and look at this." Crowley pointed at a section of wall painted in an abstract series of lines, brown on white, with a bull leaping over a double-headed axe at the top of the panel. "There was another one like it further back, but I didn't pay attention."

"Greeks like geometric designs," Aziraphale said. "Just look at the embroidery we both have on our kilts."

"Mine's better," Crowley said automatically, going on with, "but this isn't a pattern, is it? It could be something to help a priestess who got herself turned about in here. See this axe? That's a priestess thing. Look – I think we came in here, and _that_ was the room with the bales of wool, and _this_ is the one with all the waxed tablets I had to threaten to set alight if you didn't get moving –"

"Are you sure?"

"I've got a very good sense of direction," Crowley said, studying the design carefully.

"So we're not lost?" Aziraphale said in relief.

Crowley put his finger on the space at the centre of the design and smiled in triumph. "No, angel," he said. "We're not lost at all." The light went out, and Aziraphale squeaked a little as a strong, thin hand closed over his wrist. "Come on, let's go."

More grateful for the help than he could admit, Aziraphale trotted along after Crowley through the thick darkness. He admired the way the demon's steps never faltered, Crowley taking turns without hesitation and pulling him around unseen obstacles.

"Are we avoiding horrible pits filled with spikes?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah. If you like."

"You're no fun. Why are you stopping?"

"Just checking –"

Aziraphale clicked his fingers and brilliant white light flooded the chamber. He had a brief view of another painted wall panel showing the pattern of lines, an alarmed scorpion scuttling away, some gleaming golden vessels in the corner of the room and Crowley throwing his hands up over his eyes before the darkness slammed back with a disapproving sense of closeness.

"Ack! _Warn_ me before you do that. My blessed night vision is shot to – somewhere."

"Well, I'm sorry, but some of us can't see in the dark."

"Miracle yourself some proper eyes, then!"

"Oh, yes, why not? I'm sure no one would notice me trying out foul _demonic attributes_."

Crowley made a noise like he had decided he'd about had enough of standing on two legs for a while and quite fancied a spot of constriction to let off steam. Aziraphale jumped backwards, vaguely sure there was nothing behind him to trip him up. Maybe that _had_ been a bit rude. There was an embarrassed silence for a few moments.

"Let's just get on," Crowley said, and grabbed Aziraphale's wrist again.

They went on, falling silent at the sight of flickering light ahead. Aziraphale shivered as Crowley slid close to whisper right in his ear.

"That's not the central room. Make sure no one can see you."

They crept up to find a room with brightly painted walls depicting women picking flowers and making libations to a large woman hovering over the scene, snakes wreathed about her neck and clasped in her hands.

"I like her taste in friends," Crowley murmured.

Aziraphale looked at the girls in the room, pouring out wine just as the painted women did, under the supervision of an older woman, who leaned on a tall, doubled-headed bronze axe.

"Lift that rhyton higher," she snapped. "The Mistress of Animals demands grace and elegance; don't slop out offerings like some fishwife putting out the catch." She nodded as the girl who had attracted her ire raised her bulls-head vessel higher and poured more slowly. "Better. You all need to be perfect for the great festival."

Crowley nodded towards the far doorway and they picked their way around the girls practicing their libations and back out into the darkness. Aziraphale picked up a plump fig from a basket of offerings as they went.

"You're unbelievable, you know that?" Crowley muttered.

"Would you like a bite? It's delicious –"

"Catch me falling for the old _Here, have this bit of fruit_ line. Angels. Really –"

Aziraphale finished off the fig, smiling in the pitch-blackness at the exasperated fondness in his voice. Some minutes later, he ran into Crowley's back again.

"There actually is a pit here," Crowley said, sounding surprised. "There's a ledge on the right-hand wall – just slide your feet along. Unless you'd rather fly? It's about six foot wide and hmm – ten foot or so deep."

"What's down there?" Aziraphale said, with gruesome interest. "Spikes? Snakes? The weathered bones of previous explorers?"

"A few scorpions, though I think they probably just fell in by themselves. Mostly dust. Here we go – slide along the wall."

It was probably less dramatic than it seemed, Aziraphale had to admit. The ledge was quite wide, and the pit seemed mostly designed to catch the extremely unwary. It did suggest that they were getting to something of interest, though. After another couple of turns he saw the faintest glimmer ahead of them.

"Am I imagining that?" he whispered.

"No," Crowley murmured back. "That should be the central room. We shouldn't be seen by whatever's in there."

"I thought you said you didn't think it was real," Aziraphale said accusingly.

"Moooo," Crowley said softly and mockingly, and crept along.

The corridor gave out into a room with white plastered walls. The golden lamp suspended on chains from the ceiling gave out a soft, flickering light that shone on the scenes of a boy facing a bull, as if about to leap over its head. The bulls on the walls were shown at full gallop, their legs extended, their heads turned to face the paintings' viewers. There were no other bull dancers in the paintings. No one to distract the bull, or to catch the leaper on his descent. He stood alone, naked but for bracelets and earrings of gold.

In the centre of the room a dark-haired boy danced careful, formal steps over and over, as if determined to get them right. He made some error that only he could see, sighed, and started again. Crowley cocked his head towards the neatly made bed in the corner and sat, crossing his legs, watching the performance. After a while, Aziraphale joined him.

"It's a good quality bed," Crowley said. "Lovely embroidery on the covers. Nice lamp."

"He's got very pretty crockery," Aziraphale said, lifting up a painted bowl of grapes. He ate one, more or less by reflex. "His clothes are top notch, too."

"So what do you think? Political prisoner?"

"He's a _child_. How old do you think he is? Ten at most? A year or so younger?"

"Somewhere around that. Let's ask. Hey, kid –"

The boy whirled around in shock, his eyes going wide and astonished as he scrambled back, all his graceful elegance in the dance forgotten, and he fell over in a tumble of flailing legs and arms.

"What? Who – who are you?" he gasped, looking back and forth between them. "You can't be here! No men can be here!"

"Oh, that doesn't apply to _us_,"Aziraphale said in the sort of voice that adults have always employed to Explain Things to children, "we're not actually –"

"So what about you then?" Crowley said. "You're a boy, aren't you?"

"I'm a _boy_," the boy said. "I won't be a man for _years_." He looked at them warily. "You'll have to be executed now, you do know that? Were you trying to steal treasure?"

"We're looking for the Minotaur," Aziraphale said. "I don't suppose you've seen it?"

"I'm the Minotaur," the boy said, his tone very close to Aziraphale's Explanatory tone. "Who _else_ would I be?"

"I, er, thought you'd be taller," Aziraphale said.

"And half-bull. There's something dodgy about your dad, right?" Crowley added. "Come on, angel or demon? You can tell us."

"My father," the boy said, and stopped. "That is," he said. He sat on the floor and looked stubborn, his eyes firmly on his bare feet.

Crowley looked at Aziraphale. "Your lot are better with kids. _You_ ask him."

"Why do I have to ask?"

"Because I'm about to punt him down the corridor."

Aziraphale heaved himself off the bed and bent over the child. "Now, dear," he said. "What was that you said about your daddy?"

"He's the Earthshaker," the boy mumbled.

"Oh. Just to be clear, that's one of the titles you give Poseidon, am I right?"

The boy nodded and peered up. He was a rather good-looking child, Aziraphale supposed, dark hair and eyes, olive skin with a faded tan, no obvious signs of malnutrition. And someone had been taking good care of him; he was dressed in a kilt of soft, saffron-coloured wool, his hair was curled in ringlets and perfumed oil had been rubbed into his skin. But he seemed listless and downhearted, poor thing.

"Do you ever leave this room, dear?" he asked.

The boy shook his head.

"How long have you been here?"

He shrugged.

Aziraphale gently pulled him to his feet. "What's your name, dear?"

"I'm the Minotaur," the boy said. "That's my name. I'm the Bull-Calf of Knossos. My mother –" He bit his wobbling lip. "The Lady of the Labyrinth is my mother. She told me the Earthshaker is my father, I didn't know that before. She said I'll meet him at the festival. But I have to get the dance steps right first."

"I think you will meet him," Crowley said. "Why don't you show us your dance?"

The Minotaur looked at him in concern. "You should go. The Lady or her attendants come to see me all the time. They really are going to execute you when they catch you."

"Then we'd better see your dance performance as soon as possible." 

The boy took a slow, careful step, then another, and then danced an old-fashioned stately set of steps, forwards and back, side-to side, his turns graceful and careful. Aziraphale and Crowley sat on the bed and watched him, their eyes following his movements, and flicking between the living boy and the painted scenes on the walls.

"From what the High Priestess said one evening, I think the King used to dance for the bull at midsummer. It was strictly a one-year gig being King, back in the day. How times change." He looked at the boy dancing. "You know what's going to happen to that poor kid, don't you?" he said quietly.

"I believe I do," Aziraphale said sadly. 

"He's not even an athlete, not like those bull dancers you were cheering on. Just one little boy dancing a nice little dance in front of an enraged bull; and everyone here can go on pretending how much better they are than people who carry out human sacrifices."

"It's not really a sacrifice, is it? I mean, he might get away?"

"Right. I forgot that your side is so keen on killing kids."

"Don't be so overly emotional," Aziraphale said. "What do you want me to do?"

"Your job! _I_ can't go around saving people, but you –"

Aziraphale drew back and just stared at him. Then he went back to looking at the final steps of the dance. The boy smiled with the pleasure of a job well done, the smile fading as he was confronted again with the impossibility of his visitors' presence.

"Minotaur," Crowley said. "Where did you grow up?"

"In a village at the coast," the Minotaur said. "My mother is a weaver and embroiderer –" He stopped, putting a hand over his mouth. "I mean," he said after a moment, "my mother is the Lady of the Labyrinth."

"When did the people from Knossos take you from your mother? How old were you when they came for you?" Crowley said implacably.

"In the late summer," he said miserably. "It was after midsummer-day, so Mother told me I was eight. The priestess said I had to go with them, and when I got here the Lady said I was her son now, and the Earthshaker was father to all midsummer-day's children. Can I go home now, sir?"

"Late summer," Crowley said. "It's coming up to the festival now – you've been here almost a year. What was your name before you were the Minotaur?"

"Pijasiros. Please, may I go back to my mother, sir?" 

Crowley put a hand on his shoulder and looked silently at Aziraphale, raising an eyebrow. Aziraphale drew an irritated breath and pulled him away.

"I can't interfere! I don't like it, but people have to be allowed to make their own choices – and whose fault is _that_, may I ask?"

"Oh, don't you put this on me. You _like_ the little human _mistakes_, Aziraphale." Crowley hissed. "I saw you at the bull-dance; well you should have been around for the last one. Three of the team died and you should have _heard_ the cheers. Maybe you'd have been cheering with them. It was just a _marvelous_ day out."

"Crowley, stop. That's very unfair –"

"That team you liked are slaves, you know. They all are. No one would want to risk their _own_ kids doing that, so they bring in foreign children. Most of them die, and they're _trained_. He isn't. He's just going to have a hell of a birthday."

"The Minotaur," Aziraphale whispered, looking at Pijasiros who was watching them wide-eyed. "It eats children. It's still just human stuff, Crowley. Should I really interfere?"

"I'm completely and totally in favour of all of this bull-leaping, child-sacrificing nonsense, me," Crowley said suddenly. He paused, looking at Aziraphale in narrow-eyed expectation. "Totally in favour," he repeated. "In fact I'm probably behind this hellish scheme."

"Oh," Aziraphale said. "_Oh_. Well, in that case I must require you to quit this place at once, you fiend, and leave these poor people alone. I shall at once put an end to your, your – "

"Shenanigans," Crowley suggested.

"Indeed."

"You are aware that we'll have to make some allowances for local religious expectations?"

"We'll see," Aziraphale said, and turned back to the wary boy. "Pijasiros, dear, I don't think you'd enjoy meeting the Earthshaker very much, and I expect your mother is missing you. Why don't we show you the way out of here before we get executed for apparently being men?"

The child looked, he thought, even younger when he was smiling.

* * *

Purra the weaver woke from a dream of happier times and lay in the darkness of the women's house, her eyes dry. She had no more tears, she thought. The year since Pijasiros had been conscripted by Knossos was almost over, and her time of grace would soon come to an end. The overseer of women in the village would assign her to a new workshop, one for women without children, and she would not even have her friends about her. Let him, she thought. Her son was given to the gods, her work to the palace. It was a curse to a woman to bear a child at midsummer, no matter what blessings it brought to the land. She turned over and frowned as her tiny alcove began to lighten, although it was yet many hours to dawn.

The light brightened to a warm golden glow and as if in a dream Purra saw a large, queenly woman standing in midair. Her skirts were scarlet and gold, her skin like warm ivory, her breasts heavy with milk. She regarded Purra kindly through heavily kohled eyes, as a large black and red snake coiled itself about her, flickering its tongue out against the goddess's creamy skin. In her arms, cradled like a sleeping baby, she held Pijasiros.

"Purra," she said. "Fear not."

"My son!" she cried, scrambling up, and then in horror at her temerity, flung herself down on her face. "Lady of Heaven, Greatest Mistress," she said into the floor.

"Really, fear not. Blessed art thou amongst women –"

"- and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Pijasiros," said a second hissing voice.

There was a pause, of the type in which Purra had often regarded her son with exasperation when he had been a cheeky youngster. She kept her eyes fixed firmly on the floor.

"Poor girl, up you get," the goddess said in a _let's just move this along_ sort of way. "It's not going to be safe for you here any more, so collect anything you want and we'll get going."

Purra grabbed up her only two skirts and the bag she had made for herself from scraps of yarn, and the ribbon that she had tied her son's hair with when he was small. She was ready. The goddess gestured and the curtain at the front of the alcove drew back as the little group stepped out. No one in the house of women stirred but for them. Not even the sound of snoring came from behind the other curtains. It was as if time itself had stopped. Purra flinched as the snake poured itself from the goddess down to settle about her shoulders and waist, a heavy, solid presence.

"See that silken thread?" the snake whispered, and she recognized the second voice from before. "You could sell that. Put it in your bag. Go on, you're owed it for all you've been through."

The goddess was studiously looking the other way, and she _could_ sell it, it would support her and Pijasiros for a while – she stuffed great handfuls of saffron-dyed silk into her bag.

"Good," the snake said, when her bag was full, and it slithered back up the goddess's arm and around her neck.

"Now that all that's been sorted out," the goddess said, taking her hand like a mother leading a tired child home. "Could I ask you to do the honours, dear boy?"

"Certainly," the snake hissed.

Purra tried to turn as she heard what seemed to be feet hitting the floor behind them, and she gasped as what was most certainly a man's hand closed around her upper arm. She heard fingers click, and she knew no more.

* * *

"This is safe enough, do you think?" Aziraphale said, sitting on the quayside, feet dangling over the water.

"Should be," Crowley said. "I mean, who's going to look for them in Egypt? As long as they live quietly in the Minoan quarter until they find their feet they should be fine." He passed over the jug of wine, and took a few bits of octopus from the bowl between them. "Good epiphany, by the way."

"Thanks, it's literally part of my job. By the way, if I ever have to appear as a female divinity again when you're around –"

"Yes?"

"Feel free not to squeeze my anatomy."

Crowley sniggered unrepentantly.

"You knew what we were going to find in the labyrinth, didn't you?" Aziraphale said suddenly.

"I had my suspicions, from the things the High Priestess said about the King and the festival. She never took me in there, though, we really did have to find our way."

"I'm not sure we really did much good. I mean, don't you think they'll just have found some other boy?"

"Maybe," Crowley said, looking out to sea, as if he could see Crete, out over the horizon. "But it's very near the festival, and the high muckity mucks have left it very late to find a suitable replacement. It'll be panic stations. They might even decide that the King has to go into the arena this time, like in the old days. We mightn't have stopped the whole thing, but they've been given a taste of their own medicine, Aziraphale."

"I didn't realize you cared so much about children."

"I just don't think it's fair," Crowley said, still looking out to sea. "People in power deciding to wreck the lives of people so far beneath them they haven't any real chance of standing up for themselves. What had that kid done except be born at the wrong time? Someone shows up claiming they know how to improve on the original divine plan and the kid finds himself in the dark forever. Not fair at all."

Aziraphale paused, then, "Maybe we shouldn't discuss politics," he said cautiously. 

Crowley turned to look at him and slowly a smile – a real one, Aziraphale was glad to see – spread over his face. "Maybe not. You know, we can both put this one down as a win. I get to report that no angels were producing little divine winged calves and you get to say you stopped the Minotaur eating at least one kid, plus it's all human stuff anyhow."

"We both report a victory – is that ethical?"

"Who knows? It's honest, which is more than can be said for most of my reports. Come on, just take the win. And get on a barge going up the Nile with me. Don't you want to see how Egypt is doing?"

"Um," Aziraphale said, "I don't think I should really. I mean, we shouldn't travel together, should we? We're supposed to go all over the place wherever our work takes us, not simply stick together."

"Just for a few weeks," Crowley said, climbing upright. "It'll be fun. I'll promise not to do too much if you do the same. We'll just see how things are getting on in the country. Come on, I want someone around who understands my running jokes from a millennium ago. You know you want to. What's the harm, Aziraphale?"

It might not be too bad, Aziraphale thought. At the very least he'd know where Crowley was and what he was up to, and it wouldn't be for long in the greater scheme of things –

"All right," he said, alarmed by how a warm glow started in what he supposed was the general vicinity of his heart as Crowley's face lit up. "But just for a few weeks."

"Great!" Crowley said, hauling him to his feet. "Let's go and find a barge that leaves in the morning and spend the rest of the night getting properly drunk to celebrate. And getting out of Minoan gear and into Egyptian of course. I see they're wearing their kilts a little tighter this century; that'll suit me very nicely. I'm going to have a wig that exactly matches my hair colour, what do you think?"

"Oh, for Heaven's sake," Aziraphale said in mock disapproval, "this also means you're going to be wearing even more eyeliner than at the moment, doesn't it?"

"Oh, yes, angel," Crowley said in deep, deep pleasure. "It most certainly does."

**Author's Note:**

> This is very much a mixture of fantasy Minoan Crete mixed with details of Bronze Age Minoan Crete, and flavoured with similar details to _The King Must Die_.   
While the Palace of Knossos - perhaps a ritual and administrative complex - may have seemed labyrinthine to later Greeks, the Minoan paintings showing a labyrinth certainly don't seem to be maps. Crowley was just good at interpreting art.   
Pijasiros and Purra are Minoan names.


End file.
